“Our dream has come true!” When inaugurating the new field, Paul Pieper, first chairman of FC Arpe/Wormbach e.V. from Schmallenberg, Germany, let his enthusiasm run away with him. And he wasn’t the only one on the day.

“We and the club looked at different types of artificial turf. After doing a lot of checking and getting a lot of advice, we ultimately opted for the quality of Challenge Pro² from Desso Sports Systems,” according to Heribert Störmann, head of the Public Works Department for Schmallenberg.

In spite of the very wet summer, it was still possible to meet the deadline for the installation of the new pitch. “The installation went very well; the Desso personnel did good work here,” Thomas Hochstein (FC Arpe/Wormbach e.V.) and Rainer Schmidt (city of Schmallenberg) say in unison. The two were responsible for co-ordinating the installation.

When the first ball rolled over the new grass, there was no stopping it.
“The players are very enthusiastic about the pitch. It has outstanding playing characteristics and emulates natural grass very, very closely," says first chairman Paul Pieper. “Visiting teams are green with envy at our new grass surface. The compliments just keep coming.”

Among those visitors were the coaching duo Hermann “Tiger” Gerland and legendary scorer Gerd Müller from FC Bayern Munich. They came to Schmallenberg for an hour of training to test the field quality. Immediately on arrival, they got right into it to prepare for an indoor tournament in Meschede. “We’d love to come back,” the Bavarian players said.